Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967

"Celebration As Community in Christ." Abridged and slightly edited transcript of typed remarks given by Father Walter Ong at 7:00 P.M. on November 9, 1967, at the Clergy Seminar on "Revolution in Communications."

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Main Author: Ong, Walter J.
Format: Online
Language:eng
Created: Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center 1967
Online Access:http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ong/id/1348
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author Ong, Walter J.
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Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
author_facet Ong, Walter J.
author_sort Ong, Walter J.
title Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
title_short Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
title_full Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
title_fullStr Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
title_full_unstemmed Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967
title_sort folder 10: personal bibliography. texts of various talks, papers, etc., not planned for publication at present, 1967
description "Celebration As Community in Christ." Abridged and slightly edited transcript of typed remarks given by Father Walter Ong at 7:00 P.M. on November 9, 1967, at the Clergy Seminar on "Revolution in Communications."
publisher Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center
publishDate 1967
url http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ong/id/1348
_version_ 1798396423111180288
spelling sluoai_ong-1348 Folder 10: Personal Bibliography. Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present, 1967 Ong, Walter J. Communication; Language and culture Presentations (communicative events); Transcripts "Celebration As Community in Christ." Abridged and slightly edited transcript of typed remarks given by Father Walter Ong at 7:00 P.M. on November 9, 1967, at the Clergy Seminar on "Revolution in Communications." 1967 2011 text/PDF 64 1 1 5 10_Item 0001.pdf Series 1: Scholarship, 1926-2001 Items in this folder are from Sub-sub-Series 5: Texts of Various Talks, Papers, Etc., Not Planned for Publication at Present. This sub-sub-series contains texts of various talks, papers, etc., not planned for publication at present. In addition to these, in Father Ong's "General Files" series there are copies of dozens of addresses and/or papers that have never been published, plus notes for still other unpublished addresses, lectures, etc. Many of these were eventually published in one form or another -- many, however, were not. 64 1 1 5 10 Permission to copy or publish must be obtained from the Saint Louis University, Pius XII Memorial Library, Special Collections Department Saint Louis University Libraries Digitization Center text/image eng Saint Louis University Libraries Special Collections Re.v. Walter 1. Ong, S. J Saint LOUiS University Saint Louis, Missouri 6J I 03 CELEBRATION AS OOMMUNITY IN CffilIST An abridged and slightly edited transor1pt ot taped re~rks by Walter J. Ong, S.J., 7:00 P.III.'ovamber 9, 1967, at the Clergy Seminar on "Revolution 1n Communioations;" tbe seoond in the serles or six seMinars on "Change: the Unlvers1ty and the Church" spon-sored by the Experimental Campus Mlnistry (740 De Mun, Oh,yton, Missour1 6)105) at Augustine's Motel and Restaurant, 1200 Center-vllle Avenue, Belleville; IllinOiS, trom October, 1967, through April, 1968. The word "oelebration" keeps reourring in this dlsoussion. Thill taot appears very 1tnrortant. The oonoept ot oelebrat ion is the critical thing. We talk about celebrating the Euoharist. But you don't exactly celebrate a sermon. Celebration involves other people, as a sermon does, but It bringe othere into the aot. It 1s oommunal expression ot joy, even though the joy lIIaybe centered around one person. Thera lSD't any other way to celebrate. You oantt celebrate orr in a corner. One person I know who is muoh taken with the idea Mary or oelebration is SlsterAC6rita, I.H.M., wbose serigraphs and ot er art work you all know. Sh i8 celebrated across the oountry in all ciroles. [Father John W. Padberg, S.J., spoke up here to comment on golngs-on at Immaoulate Heart College 1n Loa Angeles--parade, gaudy poat.er-a , balloons, all end1ng up with a major llturg1cal cele-bration. ) Now the Mass is essent1ally a celebratlon, and I must say that no ~tter how 0 ,rele8s1 or perfunctorily or even alopplly the oelebration or the Mass 1s carried on as f8r 8S the externals go, I stl11 tind it a tremendous thing tor roy own devot10n. It 1s indestructible. Itts just that way. 2' (~uestions about wh ther thls makes the Haas lnto sOMething l1ke a sports event.] You attend Mass and you attend a baseball gaMe. But Maas ls celebrated, While a baseball ga.Me is not cele- ~o 31so 01 pia)! i!> ~d"c.elebr.teJ, 1>"'-ac.ted, Q,o;. amOolie. if> skow.,. brated--1t ls played. A Attendlng Mass 1s different trom attending a baseball game prec18ely because the attendance itself 18 a oele-bration. You are not just watohlng if you are really a~tending. A baseball game 1. not a celebratlon. You oelebrate the baseball gaMe afterward8. You celebrate wlnning and all those things. But the Mass 1. it8elf a celebration--lt oon8i8ts 1n oelebration. In this sense lt is More 11ke a be-in than it 18 like a eports event. or oouree oelebration 1s or ltself not redemptive. On the other band, 1n the na tural world, this 18 one or the thl ngs, oele-brat10n, that is closest to the £uoharist. The ~uohariat differs from a ball game prooisely in be1ng an expression or unit]--the unity ot the People of God, or even the unity or the human raoe ln Christ. The ball game is not an expression or un1ty ln Chrlst--or lndeed in snyone or anything. It is an agon, an agonia, a atruggle, which bul1ds on and fostera unity, that or a team, and very often the loose, subhuman unity or a crowd. But a ball game ia, not an expression or ~nity. It may end in a general brawl--chaos. In thinking abvut how to bring t.he Christian message lnto closer and more real contact with the present world, lt appears that we should searoh out areas of celebration and do sometbing about them, latch onto them. Btill, human aotiv1ties ln order to be or Chrlstian value must havo some klnd or relationsn1p to the r demptive aotion of Christ. How consclous this relatioBship hae to be is another questlon. 3 Are there areas of oelAbratlon in ordloary 111'e whloh are partioularly prom181ng for the Ohristlan--thlogs golng on like the be-in in whioh Mike aloy and hls faml1y partloipated along the Oharles River In Boston, whloh we could latoh onto and readIly build up to the Idea of oelebration in Chriat, the celebration of the Euobar1st itself? Speaking of "oelebrating" Mass 1a not bl:lsedon IlremedJiilted theory. The conoept and term grew naturally, long ago, out ot the aotuality. It isn't Just today that we have begun to talk about "ceLebr-a t Lng" Masse8--thi8 goes tar, far baok In Oatholio hlstory. (Story of Annunoiatlon School, Kansaa Clty, Mo., grade school reunlon. Many reasona for our unity, but most of all the faot that we had oelebrated together. Monsignor (~atber) Tierney and hi8 inslstence on total oelemonlal, _11th everyone 10 the. parish involved.) [Questl01)8, a8 to whether oelebration can be frequent, or must be kept infrequent, no~el.] I don't know that it i8 n60es8ary to suppress minor oelebrations in order to have major ones. I celebrate Masa every day, and feel it Is a oelebration, eV6n at 5:30 a.m. But there are majolfelebrations of major feasta or other major events. Tho question rise8 as to whether oelebration is work or play. And it would seom at first that it ls roally b,sLcally play, beoause play is the only kind of oontext in which de can celebrate. And yet we speak or "celebrating" the liturgy. and fr 00 its very name leitourgla (leitos, public, from Ia~, Attic .!..!!.2!.. people + ourgos, working, from ergon, work) the liturgy 1s the ~ of the People of God. 80 we end up here In the kind of bind you get into when you talk about work and pla y. -----------'>~l/lJ(J j)} ilh10h one 18 wh1oh? When a ohild'ill learning to talk, 18 bis talk work or play1 When.be ~egin8 to W'ai~, are hl,~ attempt,s -work or play? W. both worry about them and laugh at them. WereA11ze 1~ed1ately that it 18 qui to impossible to make thl. dlatlootioD: the beginni.Dg or talking and or walklng 11 both wC!rkand piIlN. for here' we tlnd 'the ini.tlRI k10<:lor activ.ity out of which all work and play ultllQ1ftely, grows. This initial aot!v1t;; will eventually dH'ferentiate: 1tl will become aODe or 1t work and some or 1t play. But at first it is, both and ne1ther. WOI'II: and play are dialeotloally reltited c oncep t s , »ork 10 not pI y, and plllJ' is not wOI'it. And yet when you' aSK who Le the, best player. you know thst he fI, the,pl'ot'eas,1on 1. who,gets paid fOl' plav1ng so that his play ,1s real.ly work. And conver'aely, t e best worker is the one whose work reela for 111m11ke play--the research sclent1at who likes to "pIa) around" w1th !or\llulas, t'he businessman who likes to "play around U with his job, the meohan10 who l1kea to t1nker with machinery. All educational reform ultimately :leeks to reoov~r as a basis ror learnlng this initial stage 1n human life wb.n.wor~ and play , < re not differentiated, when work is as spontaneous as play and pla] is 'as productive as wOI'k. And I 'upPOS& that ult1mately wbatwe want to do in the liturgy is ,to reestablish this initial. indi-visibility between wOl'k'and play. If we ,do this, we catoh all of 11fe up into the 11turgy. (Note that a child learns to talOt and ~alk ,in a, aoc LaL oontext--his work'is play because others res'ond to it, his IIIOther and father and those who Coax him lnto realizing bie humanity, here and later.--This was an afterthought. which came wh11e transcrib1ng S The liturgy is not the same thing ae everyday life, and yet it is the same thing--everyday life raised to its highest possible pitoh in Christ. The liturgy has to be of a pieoe with everyday life, and should transform everyday life into a oelebration. Yet somehow or other liturgy is also som thing speoial that goes beyond. Our religious servioes of all sorts ought to be more jOJous than they are. They ought to be more olosely related to people's real life than they really are. We might add that there are dift'- erent ways of expressing joy. Our expression need not always be ebullient. The people who oome to the 5:30 a.m. Mas. whioh I oele-brate in St. Franois Xavier (College) Church each morning are not really very ebullient a t that dim hour, although they are surprisingly wide-awake. But I am quite convinoed that they are joyful. ~ur religious celebrations today w111 often have to do somehow rather explicitly with man. We talk much more about man than any earlier generation did. The nineteenth century, it has been said, anthropologized philosophy. http://cdm17321.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ong/id/1348

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